NEW recycling bags have been branded ‘rubbish’ by Kendal residents who have complained about them spilling their contents into the street during high winds.

The blue bags were rolled out to 14,000 households in the town by South Lakeland District Council (SLDC) earlier this month for collecting plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays; as well as cans.

But the design has been blasted by a number of residents who have woken up the next morning to find the bags blown over and rubbish strewn all over the street.

One Union Street resident said a number of houses on the road were affected: “It was horrible – all through the night I could hear the bags blowing and rubbish going up and down the street

“Then in the morning you could see that lots of them had blown over – it looked really dirty having lots of litter on the street."

Ms Dyson complained to the council, who said it had been ‘unusually windy’.

But she said: “We live in the North West of England – it’s not that unusual, we often get high winds in the winter.”

A resident of Red Tarn Road, who did not wish to be named, also sent the Gazette a picture of a litter-strewn street.

“The bags are poorly designed – they do have a lid on them but it is woefully inadequate.

“I can’t see the refuse collection people wanting to sweep up the streets with rubbish strewn all over the place."

The introduction of the bags in Kendal is the first phase of an expansion of kerbside collections that will eventually take in the whole district.

An SLDC spokesperson said: “The blue plastic recycling bags are weighted and have a Velcro lid to prevent the bag and its contents blowing away. However, due to the unusually severe winds experienced across most of the country last week we received a small number of complaints of recycling waste blowing out of the bags.

“A street sweeper followed the plastic and cardboards collection vehicle on Friday to collect recycling waste that had blown out of the bags.

“One issue we faced was that many of the recycling bags contained more than two weeks’ worth of waste since the bags were delivered before Christmas in preparation for the collections to begin in the new year.

“Although we received a few complaints due to the weather, we have had positive feedback from residents."